Until Death (40 page)

Once the truth was revealed to Medea, the depths to which her son had gone to try to do away with his wife, she was stunned, and ashamed. She hadn’t known about the surrogate child, but the child was still her flesh and blood. She knew how valuable a grandmother could be to a family and her love for her son’s children, all three of them, was real. She had come to visit, her home cooking left behind this time. Seeing her playing with the kids softened Kelly’s heart to her former enemy. Medea had looked at her broken son, his head lolling uselessly in the wheelchair, tears in her eyes. ‘I have no right to expect anything, but I am here to help, if you need it. The more hands to raise children, the better. Kelly, you are this family, and under your guidance and protection may it continue.’

Her own mother was back in her life – Kelly’s new house was near her mum’s. They had taken long walks on the beach together, filling in the lost years, rebuilding the trust that had been lost.

Kelly felt the summer warmth on her back, relaxing and liberating, full of possibilities. There were obligations to being married. She had signed up to a duty of care. When word spread in the quiet street that she was caring for a husband who was ‘locked in’ after a terrible head injury, her new neighbours rallied round, invited her out, offered all kinds of help for her children and new baby.

‘You don’t understand,’ she’d say. ‘I feel blessed. Being together with a young family is the most wonderful thing. Christos used to say to me that he would never let me go. It was his vow to me. And so I felt it was only fair that I do the same for him.’

Her old friend Lindsey had come to stay with her kids, shaking her head in wonder at her commitment, a glass of wine in one hand, a fag in the other. ‘That’s what real love is, Kel.’ And she had raised her glass in her garden chair.

She picked Joe up again and he squirmed in her arms, wriggling and cooing. Love made the world a better place, for every member of her family. She watched a seagull land on the birdbath in the small front garden, its huge wings concertinaing as it snuggled in and bathed, droplets of water flying from its feathers like diamonds in the sunlight. She smiled as she watched it take off and soar away into the blue. Free.

With thanks to Craig Sears for the sea tales, Andy Tomlinson for showing me what really lies at the top of St Pancras and how beautiful it is, Mandy Perry and the wonderful women who introduced me to wild swimming, editor Francesca Best and all the team at Hodder for their advice and guidance, my agent Peter Straus, and above all, Stephen Upstone, for putting up with me through it all, and for being able to fell trees.